


Fractured

by DoodlesOfTheMind



Category: Naruto
Genre: ANBU Comrades, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betrayal, Chronic Illness, Gen, M/M, Reconciliation, Reflection, Root - Freeform, Slow Build, Terrible Coping Mechanisms, more tags to be added later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-20 22:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11344284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoodlesOfTheMind/pseuds/DoodlesOfTheMind
Summary: Itachi's former ANBU squad picks up the pieces in the wake of the Uchiha Massacre, and Kakashi cuts himself on the shards more than once over the years. Character study gone sideways, becomes more plot-driven toward the end of the first section.





	Fractured

A chakra string twangs softly outside his window and Kakashi wakes without a sound, kunai already in hand. Something is tripping his perimeter seals. On purpose. Irritated and exhausted, he jerks the shade up to reveal Tenzou’s wide eyes. Tenzou taps on the glass with trembling hands, fingers forming the signs _open now emergency now now now_ , and Kakashi shoves the window open.

 “What?” he snarls, pressing a hand against his healing ribs. He’s been back in the village less than three fucking _hours_...

Tenzou’s face goes even whiter, if that’s possible. “Uchiha— Everyone, they’re— It’s—”

His irritation fades, replaced by something colder. “Is Crow alright?”

“We don’t— No one knows,” Tenzou stammers. “Still accounting for the dead.”

Kakashi grabs Tenzou by his flak vest and hauls him inside. “Stand back,” he says and tucks his kunai into his mouth. His fingers fly through a series of seals, hot chakra flooding through his coils until he slams his palms down on the wall. For a long moment, the dark room is lit up with the flashfire of his security wards.

“Senpai, those are at _least_ S-Rank seals,” Tenzou says, his voice tinged with an awe that Kakashi’s twelve-year-old self would have reveled in. What a difference a decade makes. At twenty-two, he just feels tired.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” he orders and falls into a familiar stance, hands clasped behind his back and kunai once again between his fingers.

Tenzou immediately straightens and snaps to attention. His voice barely trembles as he says, “Viper and I were on ready-shift at HQ. At approximately 2300 hours, Lynx rushed into the Commander’s office. Shortly after, the Commander called us and a number of other operatives to his private briefing room. The Uchiha clan, they were...” Tenzou falters then, but Kakashi’s warning growl puts him back on form. “The clan was all but wiped out. Lynx found one survivor, a child, but he’s in some sort of coma. She said it looked like genjutsu backlash.

“Three squads have sealed the compound for the duration of the investigation,” he continues. “The dead are being tallied, village assets being secured...”

Scavengers picking the bones. Kakashi turns his back on Tenzou and hastily dons his uniform and mask, aching ribs all but forgotten. “Who’s in charge of the investigation?”

“Ox.”

“Where’s Viper now?”

“Assisting with the cleanup.”

They both wince. Genma had lost himself once, throwing himself into assassination work after the Yondaime’s death and his subsequent dismissal from the Goei Shotai. Years of silent understanding and mirrored grief led Kakashi to recruit him for ANBU ( ~~but how could one drowning man save another?~~ ).

“Let’s go.”

Tenzou stays on Kakashi’s heels as they sprint toward the North Quarter, the post-war home of Konoha’s greater clans. The sun is slowly rising on their right, tinting the clouds a deep red, and Kakashi feels the threat of rain on the wind. Any scent-trail would be gone before midday.

The harsh buzzing of a security barrier grates on his senses long before they reach the Uchiha lands. The hazy chakra shield would encircle the entire walled compound, he knows, and already a small number of curious civilians have gathered across the street, shouting for an explanation. Vultures, the lot of them. Heron is covering the gate and lets them through without a word.

Inside the barrier, the scent of blood assaults him, thick and bitter despite the pristine stonework roads. If the Uchiha had made a stand against their attackers, they hadn’t done it here. Nor had they done so anywhere along the winding pathway lined with shops, and every intact window display makes Kakashi’s hackles rise. He quickens his pace and hears Tenzou stutter-step to keep up.

They find Genma exiting one of the larger homes near the center of the compound. He stops at the edge of the porch, and even through his mask, Kakashi sees the grim emptiness of the battlefield. ANBU’s Viper takes a slow breath and passes four black scrolls to the messenger hawk waiting on the railing.

“Three adults, one child, ” he says quietly. The bird bows its head and leaps into the air, carrying the sealed corpses away. There will be no wake for them; the bodies of kekkei genkai bearers were too valuable to risk. They would be burned immediately after formal identification.

Genma doesn’t acknowledge them until Kakashi falls in at his side, Tenzou a little ways behind guarding their backs. “His parents were there,” he says dully, gesturing toward a sprawling manor house to the east. “His little brother was the one Lynx found alive. No sign of him yet, or any other survivors.”

Kakashi feels his fists tighten as hope surges through his soul. Itachi would have protected his baby brother somehow, would have found a way to keep him safe. If he’d managed that, there was a chance... There’s a chance...

 

~

“Hound, wake up.”

He frowns. The voice sounds familiar. Familiar, but wrong. Too soft, too gentle to be her. Must’ve been dreaming.

“Hound,” the woman repeats. Still too gentle, cautious. And distant, as if she’s afraid to come near the stained, threadbare sofa that’s been a fixture of the ANBU Ready Room since before the Sandaime’s first installment as Hokage. “Hatake.”

He opens an eye to find Tsume against the far wall, hands in plain sight, mask tied to her hip. Her coarse brown hair is disheveled and the war paint on her cheeks is smudged. Her canine partner, Kuromaru, is nowhere to be seen. “You got a lead?” Kakashi asks. Or tries to. His tongue feels like cotton, and his throat like sandpaper. This was what, his twelfth hour of sleep since that night? ( _That night_ because he can’t bring himself to call it what the civilian press has already deemed the _Uchiha Massacre_.)

“The boy woke up.”

Kakashi is vertical in an instant, only recognizing that too-careful tone after his boots hit the concrete floor. He deliberately keeps his hands away from his weapons and relaxes his stance, but his mind is racing. The two of them are alone in a room that rarely hosts fewer than a dozen on-duty ANBU. Ergo, this isn’t on the record. And _Inuzuka Tsume_ is shaken. Rumors have been circulating, and the dearth of evidence found by the investigative teams has only fanned the flames...

“What are we up against, Jackal?” he asks quietly.

Tsume doesn’t turn away, doesn’t break his gaze, but her dark eyes turn hollow. “Itachi killed them. He killed them all.”

The words ring in the air. He doesn’t hear her say that Yamanaka-san has verified the truth within the boy’s memories (or that he’s been gibbering to himself in a corner for several hours after wading through the genjutsu that had been woven into young Sasuke’s mind). He doesn’t hear her remind him that Itachi has been under investigation for the possible murder of his older cousin. He isn’t listening to her recite the evidence that it had been an inside job: the lack of resistance, most of the victims dead in their homes, several in their own beds, no wards or alarms activated. He can’t hear her beg him to keep this quiet until the Sandaime makes an official announcement this evening.

No. He sees the uptight little prodigy in ill-fitting armor and an unmarked mask on his Initiation Day. He sees flowing, silky-straight hair, wide charcoal eyes, and porcelain-pale features, and the six-inch dent Kakashi left in his Commander’s desk the day the man had thrown the Uchiha heir to the wolves. He feels warm, gentle chakra, like a fire banked to continue smoldering unseen through the coldest of nights. He remembers strong, sure hands holding his intestines in place until Genma could patch him up well enough to keep running. Another thought, one he’s been denying since it the moment it entered his head, presses to join the assault—that one day, maybe in a few years—

“Kakashi?” Tsume asks.

“You’re wrong,” he rasps. “He couldn’t...”

She shakes her head silently.

 

~

His squadmates find Kakashi standing in a large, but spartan bedroom. A low twin bed with unwrinkled white sheets, a narrow writing desk, and a pair of bookshelves full to bursting are the only public evidence of his life. Kakashi has already found the weapons locker concealed beneath the floorboards, a trick Itachi had likely picked up from Kakashi’s own apartment judging by the seals placed over the lid. The boy was an incorrigible magpie—much like his Captain.

Tenzou knows what he’s looking for and says nothing. Genma guards their backs, face unreadable.

Kakashi looks to the window and sees a teenager unable to sleep through the night, a common curse among their profession. He recalls fireside philosophy between skirmishes along the Kumogakure border.

_How does one decide between peace wrought in blood, or a war founded upon ideals?_

_Whose blood, and which ideals?_

_Does it matter?_

He remembers unguarded comments, little glimpses into a tense home and domineering father. He sees a bone-weary soldier reporting to Danzou, to the Hokage, to the Council, and he thinks he knows the young man well enough to read the lies in his eyes.

He sees his father’s shame, placing individual lives above the mission.

He sees his own in the opposite: in blindness to those lives.

 _Why didn’t I see what you were becoming?_ He doesn’t think he says it aloud, but the swirl of dust in the air implies otherwise. _Why wasn’t I there to stop you?_

Tenzou doesn’t make a sound, but Kakashi turns to him, turns to Genma, and beckons for them to follow. He guides the shattered remains of his squad to his apartment and uncaps seven kinds of liquor. There’s no need for cups.

After all, it isn’t the first time an ANBU soldier has snapped, that the village’s greatest weapons have turned against it. It won’t be the last. But he’ll be damned if it happens to these men.

Then again, he’s damned anyway. The apartment is filthy with sweat and vomit by the time they crawl out to face the dawn, and Minato-sensei’s face glares down at Kakashi from the mountain with a thousand accusations in his eyes.

 

~

They’re back on missions again. There’s no time to waste on grief, every shinobi who earns his Jounin patch knows that, but some things are sacred.

Namiashi Raidou’s joined them now ( _ ~~joined~~_ ~~, not taken his place~~ ). He works well with Genma, the expert assassin and the would-be medic with an ironic talent for poisons. Despite this, there’s a palpable strain between them, a horrible shared guilt and helplessness over their inability to save _their_ Hokage. Kakashi holds himself apart from it ( ~~because if he doesn’t, he’ll slaughter them both for their failure to save _his_ Everything~~ ).

The catalyst is a brutal, no-holds-barred brawl that levels a few acres of the western forests. The resolution...makes Kakashi slightly uncomfortable.

Tenzou is quiet, watching Kakashi’s blind side as they make their first official run as a squadron. It’s irritating, smothering, but he accepts it...for now. He understands what  Tenzou’s afraid of, and he isn’t sure he’s wrong. Genma suspects, and Raidou doesn’t know.

They have been deliberately kept out of the hunt for Itachi. Even though they know him best, even though they are well-equipped to bring him down, the Sandaime has refused to allow them to leave the village for three weeks. Fury boils in Kakashi’s stomach, but he keeps his pace steady, his eyes forward. He doesn’t tell the other men that he’s bribed, blackmailed, and beaten information out of those assigned to the strike team. Several reports confirm that Uchiha Itachi has been seen near a small port village by the name of Aoki. By mere chance (or so Kakashi will claim if required), his squadron was assigned to neutralize some smuggling activity in the area, and if they would fucking _hurry_ , they’ll beat the men officially investigating the reports there by six or seven hours.

 

They split off into pairs as they approach the town, Tiger-and-Viper, Cat-and-Hound. It already feels natural. ( ~~A division that would never have been so simple when they were _four_ , not three-and-one, two-and-two.~~) Tenzou doesn’t try to talk him out of it, but he’s no longer the acquiescent rookie deferring to his Captain’s judgement. His eyes are hard, as much as Kakashi’s own.

They scour the town until long after sunrise, Kakashi’s dogs aiding the search more effectively than twice as many men.

They find nothing.

He’s bitterly grateful.

The nightmares plague him for seventeen days.

 

~

He’s relieved of his position.

He’s become too cold, too harsh, too relentless. All valuable traits in ANBU, all dangerous for a Jounin. He fights the dismissal anyway, because Genma, Raidou, and Tenzou—Viper-Tiger-Cat—are all he has left. Because his ability to bring these men victorious through hellfire and a rain of steel is all he has left. He’s failed too many already, far too many, but not them. _Not them_. Never.

Tenzou—Cat-taichou, now—is the first to offer his condolences: he stocks Kakashi’s pantry and fridge (effectively bypassing his myriad security seals as if to say _See, Senpai, I can take care of myself_ ) and leaves absolutely no alcohol in the apartment. Kakashi spends the next nine hours designing a ward that will deliver approximately ten thousand volts of direct current into the next person to touch one of his doors or windows.

Genma and Raidou don’t visit for another month. When they do, they clear out the spoiled food and replace it with fresh. Genma all but orders him to be at Ground Seven for training at dawn tomorrow. The unspoken _or else_ doesn’t really concern Kakashi much.

He becomes a tad more concerned the next day, when his apartment door is in splinters and Gai is spouting flowery prose about the joys of strenuous exercise as the sun tints the clouds. He reacts on reflex: a snarl that would have shown his teeth and a faster-than-thought uppercut to his old sparring partner’s jaw.

Gai drives their battle through the streets that Konoha’s rooftops become for those with the requisite skill and daring. He’s pushing Kakashi hard, holding back only a fraction of that devastating strength, and it takes everything Kakashi has to keep up. He gives it. Gives in to it. Takes three solid blows and lands a pair of his own.

Two battered, sweating Jounin slump down into the cushions at a low table late that evening. They’re breathing heavily, Kakashi more so than his companion, and Kakashi’s left eye is trailing blood from overuse. He doesn’t pull his hitai-ate down to cover it. This is Torinosuke’s. The other patrons are all active duty or ANBU’s semi-retired reserves. A few of them tip him subtle salutes. Lynx—Yuugao—smiles over the rim of her beer and nods at him. (He sees three of her: one the dead-eyed child who fought her way free from a nightmare, sheltered and raised by demons, one the bloodthirsty hellion he thought he’d destroyed, and one a young woman come into the full maturity of her talent.)

She’s the next one to break down his door, sword in hand, though she does it by the light of the crescent moon.

(She’s improved. Kakashi needs eight stitches on his right arm, seven on his left, and three along his cheek. She does them all herself, fingers strong and steady.)

 

~

Kakashi has too much dignity to stammer and gape at the Sandaime when he’s finally—after ninety-eight days of torturous leave—given another assignment. He does, however, permit himself one question.

“You can’t be serious.”

Sarutobi Hiruzen arches a single eyebrow, and Kakashi feels like he’s four years old again, back in the Academy headmaster’s office after that incident involving an improvised pipe bomb and a few gallons of black ink. (He doesn’t think about the true originator of that scheme. Some memories are best left alone while the sun shines.)

Kakashi argues, argues for hours, and eventually blatantly refuses the order. He’s ignored.

The first Genin trio that he’s assigned are gone by the time Kakashi arrives at the Academy to meet them. He considers it their loss and settles down at Mika-sensei’s desk to read until the sun finishes setting and the road is swathed in darkness again.

Four months later, the next batch is still waiting when he saunters into the room. He dismisses them immediately, leaving a note for Hanako-sensei that they aren’t ready. He blithely ignores her demand for an explanation and begins submitting requests for reinstatement to full-time ANBU service. Daily. In triplicate. Frequently in person. Hiruzen grows tired of him within the week, but denies every one. Individually.

One set, perhaps a year into his new role, grabs his attention. Sato Rukia, Taijiri Masato, Nakamura Shigeru. They’re wartime children newly come into maturity: tough, levelheaded, bright, just barely approaching competence. Kakashi has reflected on what makes the difference between success and failure in the field, and he gives them Minato’s test, the one that taught him more about what it truly meant to be shinobi than any Academy lecture: to take the two bells hanging from his belt.

The friction between them builds quickly. Rukia is better at hand-to-hand than he expected. She’s unconventional, adaptable, and her fingertip taps one bell before he snaps her collarbone, leaving her gasping in pain in the dirt.

Her teammates don’t ignore her predicament completely; they form an alliance to take the bells together, confident in their chances for advancement now that she’s out of the picture.

Kakashi stalks away before he cracks their skulls.

 

~

Genma knocks politely at Kakashi’s new all-steel security door. It’s startling enough that he answers.

His onetime subordinate has grown into his cocksure attitude. There’s a relaxation to his stance that Kakashi hasn’t seen before. His skin is deeply tanned, apparently from a long assignment in Wave, and his amber eyes glint even in the dim shadows of Kakashi’s apartment.

“36B-AZ,” Genma says without preamble. “Welcome back, sir.”

Kakashi is rusty. It takes him all of a quarter-second to react, a lifetime for one of the ANBU. He changes into the single uniform and set of armor that he managed to keep upon his dismissal and brushes the dust off his mask. Genma doesn’t stop him, even though he technically doesn’t have the right to wear them anymore. A form 36B-AZ was a requisition for a non-ANBU special attache for the duration of a single assignment, commonly used for specialists in a given field or those with necessary political accesses. He’s neither, but he knows Iwa better than most men alive. (It frequently forms the background of his nightmares, when Konohagakure itself needs a rest.)

Viper is nominally in command, but he defers to Kakashi without question or resentment. Cat no longer watches him so carefully. Tiger is distant, knowing he isn’t part of this reunion, but Genma refuses to allow that.

The mission is a simple one, as these things go. A small package, maybe 30 centimeters square and half a kilogram, was to be delivered to a marked location by the end of the week. The contents and intended recipient were classified, and no surveillance of the pickup was permitted. They were, quite literally, to stash the cargo under a rock and leave.

The run is uneventful, and Kakashi is quickly relegated back to ordinary Jounin life. Another graduation ceremony is approaching, and another team will be (briefly) assigned to his care.

Genma doesn’t report him for his illicit memorabilia.

 

~

Genma or Tenzou show up at his door every so often with a stamped form and heartfelt salute. He runs with them irregularly, but there’s a monotony to their assignments that ruins the thrill. Deliver the package, leave. Occasionally, the drop sites are deep in hostile territory, and Kakashi revels in the sensation of fighting back-to-back with men he trusts more than he does himself. His short sword sings for blood, and once in a while, that thirst is whetted.

And then he returns home again, the edge taken off his restlessness, but never sated. Oh, he runs a tight schedule of missions as a regular Jounin. He’s away from the village about three quarters of every year, some of his assignments dangerous, many classified, most solo and a few alongside men and women he has become comfortable working with. But none are ANBU. None allow him to fully submerge in who he has _been_ since he was thirteen years of age. He never hears his title spoken (though he notes that the Hound mask is never reassigned).

It aches, but Kakashi is slowly acclimating to life in the village rather than in the shadows that protect it. He learns to grieve, something denied his generation during the war. He spends days at a time standing before the Memorial Stone in conversation with the dead. Ragged wounds begin to close somewhat, though he knows he’ll bear their scars for the rest of his life. He accepts that, and finds a small amount of clarity. ( _ ~~The lost~~_ ~~, he never mentions.~~ )

He moves out of the dank little hovel that was all he could afford as an orphaned Genin, and all he has known since. His new apartment doesn’t have the best view of the Hokage Mountain, but it has a perfect view of the best _part_ of it. He thinks the disappointment in Minato-sensei’s eyes has lessened over the years. And when the sunset strikes the mountain just right, he seems to come to life again for a few brief moments.

He is distracted, often, and gradually discards the discipline instilled in him by a lifetime of warfare. He turns in a mission report two days late, and smirks all the way through the scathing tirade he gets from the high-strung Chuunin at the desk. There are no other consequences. He doesn’t have to bury someone he swore to bring home again. No one is left maimed, crippled for the rest of his life. It’s freeing. (He reaches over and bats at Umino-san’s ponytail on his way out, and the younger man goes strangely silent.)

His next, two weeks later, is written in the multilingual shorthand that he has always favored for his own notes. There are words their country just doesn’t have, after all (like _oka_ , an Iwa marketplace shorthand that indicates a large, but non-specific quantity of inferior products). Iruka is furious, red-faced and utterly fearless as he jabs a finger into Kakashi’s chest, shouting about a need for order and standardization in reporting. He finds it endearing, and even more so when he learns that the other man also serves as an Academy instructor. Perhaps there’s some hope for the next generation after all.

It isn’t long before he finds himself recognized outside of Torinosuke’s, and it’s always disconcerting. He’s become known for his various quirks as much as his shinobi prowess, and he’s never without a book to hand. Few of them are academic theory anymore; romances have caught his interest, and he sees no reason to hide his enjoyment. They make a handy shield against unwanted conversation, which presses from all sides. He’s become something of a celebrity among the older Chuunin and young Jounin, and rarely does he get a moment’s peace in public. ( ~~He wonders if this is how _he_ felt, though the need to maintain appearances would have hidden it completely.~~ )

 

~

Today, Kakashi stares at the names on the cover the traditional grey folder. One, he doesn’t know, and he is grateful that the gods have seen fit to grant him that much mercy. The other two are spikes of icy agony in his chest. The legacies of those he’s failed. He can’t even think their names, though his eyes trace the characters for hours.

He sees the Sandaime’s hand in this, the old man’s cruel offer of redemption. But more vividly, he sees four people that he was unable to save. Their names he can whisper, because he welcomes the pain they bring. He deserves it.

“Namikaze Minato. Uzumaki Kushina. Uchiha Obito. Uchiha...Itachi.”

Memories drive him to his knees in the privacy of the empty classroom. He bows his head and _shakes_.

_They’ll fail anyway, like all the others._

_Wouldn’t that be worse?_

 

When the day comes, he almost can’t bring himself to face them. Tenzou knows, he thinks, and his kouhai isn’t far from his side as Kakashi trembles in front of the Stone. When he does go to them, though, his composure is cemented in place.

His first impression isn’t a good one.

Uzumaki Naruto has his father’s features and his mother’s limitless chakra, but subzero restraint. If Kakashi has had to work to free himself of the discipline of his youth, then Naruto never had it to begin with. The boy is wild, uncouth, and above all _loud_.

Uchiha Sasuke is silent, aloof, but fury and ambition burn within his eyes. Kakashi knows what _he_ told the boy the night of the Massacre, and Sasuke has taken it into the core of his being. He’s made of glass around it though. Tempered glass, true, but he’ll shatter one day and if he has half his brother’s power, he’ll level the world when he does.

Haruno Sakura is prim, proper, and demure, but her file warned for temper, and it shows when she gives Naruto a taste of her fist for his rudeness. She has no real ambitions of her own, he thinks; she’s merely been buffeted by the social currents that have tripled Academy enrollment numbers since the war’s official end. She’s sharp as a tack and he believes she has potential, but no direction. Without it, she’ll be doomed to mediocrity or academia.

 

They prove him wrong.

Naturally, it’s Naruto who does it. He draws a hint of humanity out of the efficient automaton that Sasuke becomes, and compassion from Sakura’s unyielding logic. The foundation is there. It’s enough, he thinks.

He passes them, and something eases in his heart when he does.

 

He disappears for a week and a half on another delivery run, this time with Tenzou alone. When he returns, he finds his young trio having lunch with Iruka. Naruto complains, loudly, that they haven’t learned _anything_ from their absentee sensei, and Kakashi smirks behind his mask.

He gives the boy hell for it in their first taijutsu session.

 

~

There are moments, Kakashi thinks, when he begins to understand the light that filled Minato-sensei when he thought his students weren’t looking. It’s not quite the same, of course. The stark division between _child_ and _soldier_ is so apparent now. Minato was their captain and mentor, and soon their Hokage. For them, lessons were bloody subtext beneath the constant struggle of survival. But every so often, in the brief lulls that served only to define the storms, it was there. When he hid in the shadows transfixed by Rin, her filthy clothes concealed by the simplest of genjutsu as she read to refugee children after her twelve-hour shift in the medical tents. When Obito slipped away from their comrades and bent over his sketchbook, Sharingan whirling as he rendered charcoal scenes of quiet, inane tranquility.

(When Kakashi found himself with an infant girl thrust into his arms, not to carry her to safety, but because her mother was tending the fire and the child kept reaching for the exotic young man sharing their camp for the night.)

Only one of Kakashi’s new students would survive that life. If he’s being honest with himself, it might be the _only_ way he survives. Sasuke pushes himself so hard, and his frustration only grows as he encounters the arbitrary barriers of “childhood” that peacetime imposes. The Sandaime doesn’t understand. Doesn’t want to understand. Given proper guidance, the boy could be ready for ANBU in five years. An estimate that is promptly revised to three when his Sharingan springs to life in that fateful battle against Zabuza and his young partner.

And then...

Something remarkable happens.

Within Haku’s impenetrable prison of ice, a crack appears in the glass that is his mind and heart. For the first time since his world was torn apart and left in shreds at his feet, Uchiha Sasuke embraces _life_. When he throws himself, his fury, his vengeance between his fallen teammate and Haku’s coming attack, Kakashi realizes just how wrong he has been.

A tired, cocky grin and Sasuke’s bloody arm around Naruto’s shoulder are his first glimpse of the path not taken, and Kakashi decides that he will do _anything_ to ensure this young man gets to finish the journey.

 

It’s not altogether unexpected when a pair of ANBU recruiters catch Kakashi at Torinosuke’s a week later and casually mention the brilliant young soldier under his command.

And it isn’t without a fair degree of satisfaction that Kakashi sends for a cleanup crew to take care of the mess he leaves behind.

 

~

Teenage melodrama isn’t something he’s ever had much patience with. He is _this_ close to tearing Sakura’s hitae-ate from her head, and the temptation only grows stronger with each passing day. If he hears one more not-so-subtle inquiry into “what boys like,” he’ll drop her off at a brothel and she can figure it out for herself.

Kurenai looks over at him and raises a single, delicate eyebrow. “Can I offer you some advice you really don’t want to hear right now?” she asks, lounging by his side along the riverbank, two bottles of cheap sake between them. As usual, she doesn’t wait for permission. “Quit with the sexist jerk routine and think about your _student_.”

 _Who, exactly, do you think I’m talking about?_ Kakashi almost snaps, but he’s more than a little buzzed and she beats him to it.

“She’s civilian-born, yes? A first-generation shinobi?” Kurenai asks.

He nods.

“Still has all four limbs and both parents? No major losses in her life? A full stomach every night?”

“When she isn’t on one of those crazy diets that leave her fainting after a few hours. What are you getting at?”

With practiced grace, she upends her bottle and finishes the remaining liquor in a single swig. “You’re used to women like Tsume-san, like Yuugao-san, like that vicious little bitch, Anko.”

“Hey,” he halfheartedly objects.

“You’re used to people who’ve lived in the same world as us. Imagine... Today’s young people get to live their lives without that in the background. It’s not that they don’t strive for anything more, but that there _is_ nothing for them to pursue. So they fill the void with meaningless drivel, their silly little roles and obsessions, and it’s important to them because it’s _all they have_. You don’t have to understand it—hell, I know I can’t—but you can acknowledge that it’s real _for them_ , yes?”

He nods again, thoughtfully this time.

“I bet her eyes are opening to a lot more now. Take her seriously, even if it’s painful at first. She’ll surprise you.”

He spends several long minutes mulling it over. There’s no bite in the words when he asks, “Did the Hyuuga girl surprise you?”

Kurenai smiles just a little. “She does. Every day.”

 

Three days later, Kakashi buys a wary Sakura lunch at some trendy cafe she frequents (when she’s eating). She’s rigid in her seat, obviously wondering what fresh hell he has planned for her today.

“So,” he says breezily. “What’s new?”

She blinks. “Um, nothing?”

“Was that a question or an answer?”

“Both?” she says, then blushes deep scarlet. “Um, I mean...”

He bites his tongue hard before he speaks in order to keep his tone civil. “I’ve got a friend in an academic library who needs an intern to help with the paperwork. I volunteered you.”

“Oh, um...”

“Six hours twice a week, Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings. Don’t be late,” he says. The flash of indignation in her eyes is worth every penny paid for the ridiculously overpriced tea.

“At least tell me this is a _paid_ internship?” she asks.

“Nope. Strictly volunteer.”

What she doesn’t know is that Sachi, chief librarian of the village archives, has owed Kakashi a favor for a few years now. She politely looks the other way when Kakashi strolls into the secure library under the cover of genjutsu. Invisible, he perches atop the towering shelves and watches his student for six long hours, making mental notes of which books and scrolls she tears into away from prying eyes.

Her fascination with iryou ninjutsu is unexpected. And she’s a quick study. She titters and blushes when she lays her fingertips on him, but she manages to heal a deep cut along Sasuke’s forearm during their next weapons session. She beams at the feat, and Kakashi is overcome with memories of Rin. So much so that he almost misses his chance.

“Where’d you learn that?” he asks her casually.

She ducks her head, embarrassed. “Just a book I read.”

“Really, now? It took me a solid year to learn how to knit the skin back together without any scarring.”

“Oh, it’s not that difficult,” she says hesitantly. “You see, you just... You don’t start at the edges, the way the introductory manuscripts say. You want to focus on the entire wound area at once and rebuild it in even layers. It’s kind of like...”

He settles in for a very, very long lecture on the basics of healing clean cuts and simple abrasions. He listens to every word, and silently apologizes for wasting her time for their first four months together. _You’re right, Kurenai. I was an ass, and I owe my students more than that. All of them._

“Hey, let me get a pen, I just had an idea for how to minimize infection risk!” She frantically searches her pockets until he produces one, leaning over her shoulder as she fleshes out her thoughts.

 

~

Kakashi hangs back, watching the alley. This is the best chance they’re going to get. He nods at Naruto, who silently emerges from his hiding place behind a pair of overflowing dumpsters. A set of rusted lock picks come to his hand with surprising ease, and he’s through the back door quicker than using a key.

Kakashi frowns at that, but he shakes his head. Focus is paramount here, something he’s lectured Naruto about often enough. His breathing slows into long silent pulls, and he counts the seconds until the boy returns. He starts to worry when he hits eleven minutes. After all, this is Naruto’s first intel assignment.

 His fears prove groundless, though, and Naruto slips back outside with a proud grin. “I got it, Kakashi-sensei!”

“Keep your voice down,” he mutters. He ushers the boy back to their hotel, where Naruto thrusts the shipping manifests into Kakashi’s hands.

“See? I really did it!” he half-shouts.

“Uh-huh.” Kakashi is already poring over the information, looking for the telltale signs of smuggling activity. He’d initially planned on getting the data himself, but giving Naruto the chance to gain valuable experience was worth extending the mission deadline. It was inevitable that his later C-rank assignments would involve a lot of low-risk escorts and medium-risk intel and object recovery ops. Sakura’s exceptional memory and Sasuke’s Sharingan were better suited to this sort of assignment, but that was all the more reason to ensure Naruto got the opportunity when it came along.

Naruto’s excitement dies down quickly, and he soon slips out the balcony doors. Hours pass as Kakashi crunches the numbers, figuring out which container records had to be falsified based on simple physics. It takes longer than it should have for him to become disturbed by the uncharacteristic silence.

Cautiously, he peers out the glass doors. Naruto is curled against the railing, arms wrapped around his knees.

“Something on your mind, kid?” he asks quietly.

Naruto jumps and fakes a smile. “Nah, it’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“You can’t bullshit a bullshitter,” Kakashi admonishes.

Naruto’s gaze turns thoughtful for a long moment. “I just haven’t needed the lock picks for a while.”

Kakashi sits beside him, waiting.

“If I ran out of food, or ya know, anything, I’d have to steal it from somewhere. I got really good at it,” Naruto confesses. “Sometimes, things would just kinda...magically appear in my apartment, but not all the time. But now I have my basic Genin income, plus mission pay. It’s like being rich. I never thought I’d see those things again.”

Kakashi winces. Minato’s son didn’t always get enough to eat? _And I let it happen. Over a decade...where was I?_ He knew the answer: selfishly drowning in his own pain. Ignoring his duty. Betraying Minato’s legacy. He had a feeling he knew who had been leaving things for the boy, though; Genma was a natural mother hen, of course he’d make sure the old Goei Shotai looked out for their Hokage’s orphaned child. Even if his parentage wasn’t common knowledge, they would certainly be privy to the secret.

“I’m not in trouble, am I?” Naruto asks sheepishly.

“No. Not at all.”

 

~

The Chuunin exams shatter what little peace Kakashi has found. His students have grown remarkably, but it isn’t enough to protect them in their first _real_ combat situation. Even with Genma proctoring the third stage, all hell breaks loose. Sasuke is gone, taken in by a madman who shares his lust for power. They spin it as a kidnapping, not outright desertion, and it’s the only thing that keeps the last Uchiha out of the Bingo Books.

Kakashi is drowning in helpless rage at the man who set this path in motion. He takes up the hunt now that the Sandaime is dead and the village Council is in disarray, but there’s no need.

Uchiha Itachi comes to him.

Gone is the reserved child veteran that Kakashi remembers. In his place is a lean, sinewy young man with flinty eyes and a slashed-through hitai-ate. Kakashi hardly takes note of the killer beside his former comrade, though he knows the Swordsman by reputation. He meets Itachi’s crimson eyes in challenge and lets his chakra boil with everything he’s felt these long years.

Their fight is a brief one. Kakashi’s torment, significantly longer. The genjutsu Itachi casts over him is like nothing he’s ever imagined. The young man is cold, empty, as his phantom-image methodically drives a blade into Kakashi. And does it again. And again.

He breaks somewhere around the second day, no longer fighting. He screams freely, sobs, begs. It changes nothing.

 

Tenzou, Genma, Raidou, Gai, and Iruka are there when he wakes. The coded tapping of Tenzou’s fingertips tells him that there are twenty other ANBU hidden throughout the hospital, and half as many of their Jounin comrades in the waiting room. He has a veritable army defending him, and has apparently had them for three and a half days.

He tells them all to fuck off. Tenzou hands him a coffee cup, still steaming, and Kakashi revises that response. (Into _Fuck off, please_.)

Kurenai visits shortly after, her hands still shaking a bit. _He_ hadn’t taken her with the same technique, thankfully, but their genjutsu battle hurt her far more than she cares to admit. They’re talking shop before they know it, dissecting, planning, preparing. Tenzou glares silently from the chair in the corner, and he doesn’t stop them.

(He does stop Kakashi when he tries to sneak out the window that evening. A rotation of ten of their fellow soldiers is created to enforce his mandatory bedrest.)

(Gai simply sits on him for his full eight-hour shift.)

Kakashi doesn’t resist as strenuously as he might have. When it’s Gai, or Tenzou, or Genma watching him, he lets himself _remember_. Remember an eleven-year-old with twenty-six confirmed kills (and more he knows will never be officially recorded; the clan couldn’t have their precious heir looking too vicious). He’d expected a slaughter when their squad was assigned to infiltrate a Kiri surveillance post, and he remembers the searing warmth that filled his chest when Crow knelt in the shadows and carefully constructed a sleeping genjutsu that would cover the entire building (no mean feat; Kakashi couldn’t have managed something half so large or subtle). They’d retrieved the information without a single life lost. On either side. Itachi’s exhausted smile was a small, almost unnoticeable thing, but it unlocked something in Kakashi’s heart.

He remembers Itachi’s sword twisting in his guts again, and vomits into the sink.

 

~

Naruto has been gone so long, his powers developing at a rapid pace under Jiraiya’s tutelage; with Sakura interning at the hospital under Lady Tsunade, it leaves a quiet, empty place in the village and in Kakashi himself. Sasuke is gone as well, but he leaves a very different sort of abyss in his wake. Kakashi will _not_ count him among the lost. Not yet. (He knows the condition that will change this, and he rails against the idea even as he realizes it.)

( ~~After all, he’s already damned the Uchiha once with his blindness.~~ )

War is more than a rumor, but still a hair-trigger shy of reality as he places a single signed, stamped petition on the Godaime Hokage’s desk. There’s something in her eyes that he doesn’t understand when he does. Instead of giving him what he needs, what Konoha needs, she offers him her sake bottle.

The liquor isn’t the rich vintage he expects. It’s bitter, foul, and far too strong, the stock-in-trade of Genin and young Chuunin everywhere.

The next time he salutes her, he means it.

 

Tenzou shows up at his door again a few days later, Genma by his side. (Raidou isn’t there, and Kakashi notices how strange it has become to see one without the other.) Tenzou’s bearing is different, and he meets Kakashi’s eyes as he orders—not asks—him to activate his security wards. Genma looks askance at him, but takes the better part of valor and remains silent.

The tale he recounts leaves Kakashi sick and half blind with rage.

Root. Danzou. The Council. Half of it is speculation, but the half that counts is enough to bring his world to a standstill.

“He always said they were a threat to peace,” Tenzou is saying. “The Sharingan is naturally linked with the user’s emotions, and their capacity for hatred and vengeance is beyond imagining. And that bitterness was given generations to fester into a cancer that could have eaten Konoha from the inside if given the chance. We were already seeing clashes between the Konoha Keimu Butai and ANBU after the war, not to mention their heavy-handedness with civilians.

“Danzou’s one for the long view, and this has his signature callousness all over it. Ita—” he hesitates over the name, grimaces, and continues with force, “ _Itachi-kun_ was selected for ANBU on his recommendation. When he was given Captaincy, his squad were Root agents. I believe that when the choice came...”

“ _No_.”

“And you kept this to yourself?” Genma demands hotly. “If you so much as _suspected_ —”

Tenzou endures the firestorm with implacable calm. It covers everything but his eyes. “You know what he’s capable of, Senpai. Do you doubt it, even for a second?” The words are not quiet, and Genma’s head snaps toward Kakashi.

Kakashi feels his vision slide out of focus. He is a teenager again, stripped of everything he has ever known and facing a terrible choice with global ramifications. _I have known Sarutobi Hiruzen since we were children. He is a good man, and somehow a good politician at the same time. What he is not is a warrior. His weakness will continue to bleed Konoha dry under the cover of ‘negotiations’ and ‘compromises.’ You think the war is over, boy? It will have only just begun._

_Unless we stop it._

He had come so close, so terribly close, and to this day he still wonders if he chose wrong. If some things were more important than patriotism, than honor, than oaths of fealty. Than a good man’s life.

This time, his “ _No_ ,” has a very different meaning.

“We are the veil, the wall, the hidden hand. We protect peace from within its shadows.” The first words of the ANBU Oath ring truer than they ever have.

Kakashi slowly finds his bearings in a world that has fundamentally shifted. His voice is rough as he says, “She told you to tell us, didn’t she? This is an extraction.”

“The last sons of the Uchiha line are in enemy hands. If war breaks out, we’ll need them both.” Tenzou’s confidence seems to waver a little. “And whatever he’s done, I’m not leaving that boy to Orochimaru.”

Kakashi nods decisively, dons his armor, and straps on his sword. _And I’m not leaving that boy to the Akatsuki._

 

~

Kakashi slowly replaces the branches that hid the gap in the kapok tree’s massive roots. Amegakure is a nation of lush rainforests and vibrant wildlife, and only his appreciation for an ironic sense of balance allows him to accept the level of corruption that has taken hold here without a blink. His pack feels lighter without the small package that he has carried so many miles, but the heavy weight in his stomach more than makes up for it.

If they’re wrong, they are about to come face-to-face with the young man they let turn into a monster. And they are going to kill him.

If they’re right... Kakashi bows his head as he melts into the shadows again. If they’re right, Kakashi still failed him. He still accepted that a boy who was initially thought too much of a pacifist to be suitable for ANBU service could have taken two hundred and fifty-six lives without cause. If they’re right, then he is almost able to understand the man who drove Sasuke into a darkness so bleak that he may never climb out again. That, he thinks, is the hardest part: the reflection of himself that he finds in his former comrade’s choice.

 

They wait. Since the pickups were never surveilled, they have no way of knowing how long it might take for Itachi to retrieve whatever it is Konoha has been sending him. Tampering with the package in any way would have revealed that they were onto him, and Tsunade hadn’t known. The little boxes were commissioned and sealed by the Sandaime alone, and this was the last one that had been waiting in his private vault with a drop date and coordinates carefully inked along one edge.

This was their last chance to bring Konoha’s most volatile weapons home.

Their last chance to save two men brought to ruin by power and ambition.

 

Six miserable, humid days pass before Genma gives the signal: someone is approaching from the south. They’re not relying on genjutsu to hide them, not from the Sharingan, and Kakashi finds himself holding his breath like some untested Genin on his first survival exercise.

Itachi’s cloak is torn and ragged, and though the fabric is far too dark to show blood, it manages to anyway. The subtle sheen glints in the harsh sunlight, and the young man lifts a trembling hand to shield his eyes. He stumbles slightly as he reaches the tree, though the mishap makes no sound; ANBU’s Crow has always had a knack for silence.

He doesn’t reach for the package. Instead, he slumps against the tree and slides to the ground in a graceless heap. His breathing is labored, far more than it should be given the locations of the worst of the bloodstains, and his tremors intensify. His face is pale and drawn, but Kakashi reads annoyance in the set of his shoulders.

Another man comes out of the thick underbrush just as quietly, too quietly for a man of his size. Hoshigaki Kisame towers over Itachi, shakes his head, and kneels beside him. “We need to tell him, Itachi-san,” he says softly.

Itachi flicks two fingers, an abbreviated Common Code sign that combined _No_ and _Leave_. His hand is nowhere near steady as he draws a battered medical kit from inside his cloak, but Kisame makes no move to assist him. _Uchiha pride_ , Kakashi reflects almost absently, but inside he’s scrambling. Their plan had been predicated upon the assumption that Itachi would retrieve the package alone. The presence of his Akatsuki comrade could prove a disastrous complication.

Itachi manages to twitch his shoulders enough to dislodge the cloak, and slender fingers begin removing soaked-through bandages with painstaking slowness. The injuries are noteworthy and will certainly require medical attention, a deep stab wound through his left thigh and a laceration just beneath the floating rib on the opposite side, but they aren’t the worst of it. Midway through changing the wrapping around his ribs, Itachi convulses, coughing and gasping in a violent fit that leaves him breathless. By the time he regains control, there’s blood on his chin and the light of the Sharingan has left his onyx eyes.

Kisame has one hand raised, but he stays back as he says, “Let me finish that.”

It’s not much, just a twitch of his head, but it’s denial enough. Itachi’s eyes drift closed and his fingers fan out to either side, locating the bandages by feel. He continues rewrapping them as tightly as he can manage. Even Kakashi can see that he’ll need proper stitches and soon, but it starts to get the bleeding back under control.

Another coughing spell hits as soon as he’s finished, and this one leaves him curled on his side by the time it passes. Kisame doesn’t hesitate as he rests the back of one broad hand over Itachi’s forehead. “You’re feverish again.”

“I’m aware.” His voice is strong. Frustrated. Resolute.

“Whatever this is, it could kill you.”

Itachi doesn’t answer for a long moment. Then he shakes his head. “Go, Kisame.”

The bigger man raises an eyebrow. “I think I’ll stay this time.”

Fire kindles in Itachi’s voice at that, a haughty authority that’s more than a little reminiscent of his father. “My informant is not keen on surprises. A breach in protocol now would trigger a lethal reaction.”

“And seeing you looking like an easy piece of meat with a five hundred million yen bounty on your head won’t?” he retorts.

Itachi’s body promptly shimmers, and he carefully gets to his feet. The cloak is intact, his hair immaculate, his face calm and no longer dangerously pallid. The genjutsu is so smooth that Kakashi can’t even tell it’s there without resorting to his Sharingan. He might not even be certain with it.

“He’d be a fool to cross me.”

If the threat reaches the other man, he does nothing more than sigh in acquiescence. “If you... If things go south, send Yuko to get me.” It’s almost a question, and it earns a slight softening of Itachi’s glare. He doesn’t reply.

 

The moment Kisame is gone, out of sight, hearing, and chakra-sensing range, Itachi’s genjutsu falls to pieces. One hand snatches the package from its hiding place, and he blurs into a shunshin in the opposite direction.

Tenzou is on him before he’s gone a dozen paces, but Itachi’s still frighteningly quick; he has a kunai in hand before the other man can react and slashes upward toward Tenzou’s throat.

Genma unleashes a barrage of senbon, forcing Itachi to recoil before the strike can land. One sinks deeply into Itachi’s shoulder, and another into his biceps. It’s distraction enough for Kakashi to catch him from behind with a flying tackle. Itachi throws an elbow backward, but the blow doesn’t have half the power it should. Kakashi drives him down into the dirt and twists his uninjured arm into a brutal lock; too much movement will shred the younger man’s rotator cuff, and he knows it. Itachi stills, smothered coughs slipping out as he struggles to get enough air.

“Christ, kid,” Genma says quietly. “You’re a fucking mess.”

The genjutsu hits him then, and even though it’s muted by the lack of visual contact, the intensity is startling. Kakashi’s vision blackens, his chest constricts, and suddenly he is the one who cannot breathe. Instinctive panic claws at him, but he’s ready for it. He manages to move just one hand, feeling for his target, and Itachi lets out a breathy scream when he finds it.

His fingers are wrapped around the senbon embedded in Itachi’s shoulder, and the smell of charred flesh fills the air as little flickers of blue-white chakra send lightning coursing through the younger man’s muscles. He doesn’t release it, not even when he sees the sickened look in Genma’s amber eyes.

Itachi’s breathing turns staccato-quick, desperate and shallow, and it’s no ploy when he goes limp in Kakashi’s hold. Unconsciousness takes him.

Kakashi holds on a few minutes longer, just to be certain.

 

It isn’t easy for a man, even a shinobi of Kakashi’s caliber, to carry another adult through the dense forest. Then again, it helps that Itachi weighs about three quarters of what he ought to for his height. Bony ribs leave little impressions in Kakashi’s arms as they move, but it’s nothing compared to what the young man’s face does to him. To all of them. Genma all but tears Itachi from his arms when they reach the little cave shelter a few miles from the drop site.

It’s a mercy that the young man is unconscious as Genma cleans and binds his wounds. Behind that billowing cloak, Itachi is nothing but lean muscle and sharp bone, wasting away before their eyes. His lungs are filled with fluid, and the pressure around his heart is unimaginable. Stabilizing him costs precious time, and they reluctantly accept that they’ll need to wait out the night here.

Tenzou cautiously unwraps the little package to reveal three vials of a pale green liquid and a few sterile syringes. There are no labels, no markings, no instructions. Genma can’t identify it, but they all know what it means. Some chronic disease has taken hold within Itachi. The Sandaime knew, and his cruel sense of justice made sure that it was Itachi’s former comrades who delivered the medication that was—quite possibly—all that was keeping him alive. And they’d been doing it for _years_.

It’s proof enough for Genma. “Why, do you think?” he murmurs, turning one vial between his fingers.

“Bargain, maybe,” Tenzou replies. “Tsunade-sama said she received a coded note once, signed with a sketch of a feather. It detailed Kiri troop movements along the northern border. Fifty or so more were filed in Sandaime-sama’s private records, the earliest dating to a year after the...that night.”

Kakashi sits at the mouth of the cave, his back to them. If it’s true, if the Council ordered the slaughter of the Uchiha, if Itachi had been undercover all this time, feeding information back to the village from the heart of one of the most elusive criminal organizations... If it’s true, it doesn’t change what he’s done. Nothing will ever erase that. But it grants a dimension that those who have served the village in darkness, in silence, and in secrecy can begin to understand.

 _If_ it’s true.

He isn’t sure what to hope for. After all, who is worse: the monster, or the men who willingly follow it and commit atrocities in its name?

The question comes to him in the voice of a child veteran.

 

~

Itachi stirs frequently throughout the night, sweating with his face contorted in pain. Kakashi tries not to think of it as a death watch, but the young man’s labored breathing makes it difficult. Without knowing what he’s been taking, they don’t dare risk mistaking the dosage.

Whatever fever-born nightmares plague him, Itachi never makes a sound.

 

~

Though no one dares to sleep with Uchiha Itachi in their midst, Genma is technically the one on watch when his features smooth into something resembling peace. His breathing is rough but even, slow enough to make one think he might get a little rest before dawn breaks. They aren’t fooled.

“Cut the shit, would you?” Genma says tiredly. “We know.”

There is no reaction. None. He might _actually_ be sleeping. Kakashi is impressed, in a professional sense. Horrified in one more personal. He’s never been tasked with long-term infiltration, his talents lie in more, ah, _direct_ means of obtaining information, but he’s seen it before. The post-mission disorientation, the little lapses into a mask worn for far too long. And that’s after a year, or two, or three. It’s been nearly ten.

(He wonders just when he accepted their speculations as fact.)

Genma sighs and taps a finger against the vial still in his hand. “How much of this do you take, and how far do I need to dilute it?”

Still nothing. Genma starts to snarl something, but Kakashi lays a hand on his shoulder and shakes his head. The other man doesn’t precisely subside, but he lets Kakashi take the little bottle.

Kakashi chucks it at Itachi’s head, full force.

There’s a split-second’s indecision, he thinks, but Itachi’s hand flashes upward. His palm gives with the impact of the fragile projectile, and in a motion not unlike the jyuuken of the Hyuuga clan, he guides it to land safely on his chest without ever truly arresting its momentum. His eyes open then, dark and devoid of the Sharingan, but brimming with fury.

Kakashi meets them fearlessly. “Stick it in a vein.”

It takes a few long, long minutes, and nothing changes in Itachi’s expression when he finally rasps, “Needle. Water.”

Tenzou is closest, having positioned himself between Itachi and the mouth of the cave long ago. He passes over his steel canteen and one of the fresh needles from the drop, still in its sterile wrapping. Itachi takes them without sitting up. The fingers of his left hand flicker through a series of seals, and all three of his former comrades have hands in their weapons holsters by the time they see the steam rising from Tenzou’s canteen.

Genma eases back onto the outcropping of stone, shaking his head. “Had to boil it to remove contaminants. No saline solution in that kit of yours?”

Itachi doesn’t dignify that with an answer as he mixes up a generous dose. It’s disturbing how routine he makes it look, juggling the syringe, water, and vial while moving as little possible. He holds his breath every time his right arm shifts, and it’s probably the only thing that keeps him from groaning.

His fingers tremble slightly, and his first attempt misses the vein. He tries again, misses again. Genma intercepts his third attempt with a mutter of, “Give me that.”

Itachi reverses his grip on the syringe so quickly that no one truly sees the motion, but Genma is long accustomed to treating twitchy ANBU in the field. He shifts backward with the strike and his fingers close like a vise around Itachi’s wrist.

“Easy, kid. Just me,” Genma says softly. “Now give it here.”

He slowly takes the syringe with his other hand, and there is no resistance as he expertly finds the vein and injects the lifesaving liquid.

It must burn like acid, because Itachi lets out a strangled whimper disguised as a cough. Kakashi does him the courtesy of pretending he didn’t hear. “We move out at first light. Rest while you can.”

Itachi shakes his head, but he doesn’t move otherwise. His labored breathing is gradually easing, and Kakashi and Tenzou lock eyes over the younger man’s head. Genma dismisses the tension, lounging against the cave wall with a single senbon between his teeth.

It takes nearly an hour for Itachi to speak. When he does, his voice is deadly quiet. “What is it you think you know?”

A hundred answers flash through Kakashi’s mind. He distills them down with difficulty.

“We know that your clansmen’s deaths were ordered by the Council,” Kakashi says, fire beneath the professional detachment of his tone. “We know about the coded missives that have been turning up in the Hokage tower for over half a decade. War is coming, and the Sharingan holds significant power over the tailed beasts. We know we need you, both of you, if we’re going to survive the coming storm.

“Most of all, I know that your little brother has betrayed his country and taken up with Orochimaru because of what you’ve done. I love him like a son, I’d die for him, but I couldn’t save him. You are the only one who can bring him home.”

Heavy silence follows, and Itachi’s perfect mask begins to crack. Then he slowly pushes himself to his feet and draws his bloody cloak around his shoulders. “You know nothing at all. Be gone by sunrise.”

It’s Tenzou who stops him. The former Root agent lets his hand rest in the air a scant inch from Itachi’s unwounded shoulder, and he shakes his head. “It’s not like you to look away from the truth.”

Itachi goes still, ANBU still, not even breathing.

“You’re compromised,” Tenzou continues. “We _know_ , Godaime-sama _knows_ , and you know you only have two ways out.”

A shudder rips through his spine, but Itachi doesn’t move. Kakashi sees his eyes slip out of focus, watches in horror as he tries to steel himself, and his blood runs cold. “Tenzou, don’t—”

Tenzou doesn’t flinch at the knife that appears in Itachi’s shaking hand. “Decide,” he says, still reasonable, gentle.


End file.
